In today's guest blog Michael references his use of archetypes, values and themes in a current project. At the same time another of our practitioners, Sonja reports on a another project in South Africa. I elaborated the technique in an article last year with some other South Africa examples. As both Michael and Sonja point out, the value of the technique is as much the way people use the representations. The more you can allow people to see differences from another groups perspective, without the intervention of expert analysis, the more they learn. Instead of seeking to explain away the expert interpretation, they know that the material they are looking out came out of similar social processes to those in which they themselves have engaged.
They have to engage, they cannot explain away.
Comments (2)
How can we distinguish between stereotypes, roles and archetypes? And do archetypes lead to stereotyping or away from stereotyping? Consider the following example:
Much of the professional development of teachers is provided on a largely fixed basis: the provider is the 'expert' and the participants are 'novices'. This seems to be particularly true when teachers are learning to use IT in their classroom practices.
In an action learning project, many of the participants were surprised to discover that people who they regarded as 'experts with IT' often struggled with its use. That is, they did not fit the archetype of 'expert'. During the course of the project several 'roles' emerged:
learner, co-learner, tutor, mentor, facilitator, endorser...
These 'roles' were dynamic - the participants took on the 'roles' as they volunteered their knowledge and experience according to the situation at hand.
Perhaps the major outcome of the project was that participants moved from a limited and fixed set of archetypes (expert and novice) to a richer set of flexible archetypes (learner, co-learner, tutor, mentor...). With a richer, more flexible set of archetypes it seems reasonable that there will be less likelihood of stereotyping.
Ivan
Posted by Ivan Webb | August 29, 2007 2:24 AM
Posted on August 29, 2007 02:24
I think in your example you are talking about roles and role expectation not archetypes.
Stereotypes represent ways of categorizing people into a box and then ascribing characteristics to that box (he is black therefore ....)
Archetypes are emergent properties of a body of stories, no one is an archetype, but all members of the community should see a little of themeselves in each archetype
Hope that helps - there referenced article has more material on how archetypes are created in Cognitive-Edge methods
Posted by Dave Snowden | August 29, 2007 6:55 AM
Posted on August 29, 2007 06:55